


Pretend to be Pretending

by TurtleTotem



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [17]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Charles in a Wheelchair, M/M, Undercover as a Couple, the violence isn't that graphic but i'll tag it just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 14:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10968828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier are partners in more than just the detective sense, but no one can know that if they want to continue working together. Which makes it a little surreal when they have to go undercover at a couple's retreat.(On tumblrhere.





	1. Chapter 1

Erik took care not to sit too close to his partner when they took their seats in Captain MacTaggert’s office—but not too far away, either. They’d overcompensated, at first, and had to field a few questions about what had happened to disrupt their famously effective partnership. The dance of deception got annoying, Erik would admit... but not as annoying as it would be to be separated from Charles.

“There’s a wrinkle with the Shaw case,” MacTaggert said, blunt as ever. “We’ve had to scuttle the undercover op.”

Erik felt his entire body tense.

“Why?” Charles shifted in his seat so that his leg just happened to brush Erik's—a silent comfort and ‘shush, let me handle this’ at the same time. The police department couldn’t know how personal this case was for Erik, or he’d never be allowed to touch it.

There was a lot the department couldn’t know about Erik and what he touched.

“Our information about this scam he’s running, the couple’s retreat, was incomplete.” MacTaggert cleared her throat. “It’s for same-sex couples only. Obviously Alex and Raven aren’t going to work for that. We really haven’t managed to find an appropriate partner for Raven, and Alex… isn’t comfortable having a male partner for this op.”

“I can imagine,” Charles chuckled. “Poor Alex is not what I’d call secure in his masculinity.”

MacTaggert leaned forward significantly. “Unlike you?”

Charles and Erik both froze, exchanging intrigued glances.

“And I think we can assume Erik would not have that particular issue,” MacTaggert said. Erik was out to the department, of course, and the world at large, like it or lump it. Charles was not, largely because his bisexuality had come as a… recent surprise.

“Everyone knows you’re basically an old married couple already,” MacTaggert said, thinking she was only teasing. “What do you think?”

“You want us to pretend to be a couple?” Charles was clearly on the edge of cracking up; Erik discreetly stepped on his foot, for all that he wasn’t much better himself, and leaned forward to answer.

“I think we can handle that, Captain.”

*

When Captain MacTaggert dismissed them at last, heads stuffed with information about their new assignment, Erik barely got the door closed behind them before Charles collapsed into laughter.

A glance showed no one near; Erik dared to reach for Charles’s hand, feeling a grin split his face. This situation was absolutely surreal.

“Come, my friend,” Charles whispered, tugging Erik by the wrist toward the nearby janitorial closet. “We should absolutely practice for this very grueling undercover role.”

Erik let Charles have his way, as he too often did, and kissed him urgently in the close dark of the closet.

If they’d thought the proper-distance dance was complicated before, Erik thought as he wound his fingers through Charles’s hair—well, it was about to get _really_ interesting.

*

Orientation and an opening workshop at the couple’s retreat went smoothly enough. Charles held Erik’s hand at every opportunity, frequently leaning into his shoulder to whisper in his ear; Erik, in turn, kept an arm around Charles’s waist, and even hand-fed him a cheese cracker from the refreshment table.

It was exhilirating, getting away with everything they so seldom felt safe doing even away from work—and doing it right in front of all the people they so badly needed to hide it from. Not that anyone from the department was directly in the room with them, but they were certainly listening through the microphones attached to Charles and Erik’s clothing, and watching through the camera they’d planted in the air duct during the night.

So far they’d had only one look at Sebastian Shaw, during Orientation—after that they’d been left in the hands of his right-hand woman, Emma Frost, who led them through the workshop. That had been a little mind-numbing in its unexceptional retread of every relationship-building book or article Charles had ever read, but truthfully, nothing about the operation so far particularly screamed “scam.”

“This is the dryest chicken I’ve ever eaten,” Erik murmured during dinner. “Definitely not worth the $600 meal plan. Arrest them immediately.”

Over their earpieces, Moira replied, her voice as dry as the meal, “I think if we hang in there we might come up with some more exciting charges.”

Charles, smiling dreamily as Erik played with his hand on the table, felt his gaze snag on a man slipping into the hotel ballroom they were dining in. “Is that Shaw?” he murmured, not letting his expression change as his eyes tracked the man along the wall into a corner, where he started an intense-looking conversation with Ms. Frost.

“It’s him,” Erik replied, watching the mirror behind Charles.

“Can you get closer, see what he’s doing?” Moira said in their ears.

As if on cue, the lights dimmed, and an announcer intoned something about love and the glory of dance. As one, Charles and Erik rose and swept onto the dance floor with a dozen other couples, as close to Shaw as they could get without drawing attention.

“Oh, it’s our song, darling,” Charles said, winding his arms around Erik’s neck.

“Every song is our song,” Erik whispered, ducking his head to brush a kiss under Charles’s ear.

“Hopeless romantic,” Charles said fondly, tilting his head for more. He wasn’t kidding, either; it had been a delightful surprise, discovering what an utter shameless sap Erik could be—Charles had never dated anyone before that brought him flowers and left sonnets on his bathroom mirror.

“Dude, those two are a little too good at this, it’s creepy,” came Alex’s muffled voice over the earpiece.

The reminder that they were supposed to be pretending was more than a little dampening to the spirit; for a moment Charles felt self-conscious and awkward, as if he and Erik really were just a joke, a cover. But no watching eyes could make Erik’s hands at the small of his back less real, less welcome, less eager to be there. Charles let out a breath and relaxed again into Erik’s arms.

They drifted across the dancefloor, closer to Shaw. The argument between him and Frost was intensifying, their voices starting to carry over the music, though Charles couldn’t make out any words.

Before they could get close enough to hear anything, Shaw seemed to realize how much attention they were attracting; with a last few curt words, he swept out of the room again, leaving Ms. Frost to slump back in her seat, looking frustrated and bored.

“So much for that,” Charles muttered, making sure to gaze adoringly into Erik’s eyes and nowhere in Frost’s direction.

“Just hold tight and await orders,” Moira said.

“Whatever you say, Captain,” Charles chirped, and snuggled deeper into Erik’s arms, laying his head on Erik’s shoulder.

They stayed on the dancefloor, swaying to the music. Charles could feel Erik’s breath in his hair, Erik’s heartbeat beneath his cheek, and he wished, he so wished they really were at a couple’s retreat—even a bland and pointless one like this, because frankly the novelty of being so surrounded by other gay couples was worth a few dry dinners.

This was almost certainly the only time he and Erik would ever be this free in public, able to touch and kiss and use casual pet names like any other couple—and even now they had to be so careful not to do it _too_ well, not to make anyone suspicious. If they were caught, they would be separated, and that simply didn’t bear thinking about.

The song changed, and Charles could hardly restrain a gasp. It really _was_ their song this time, Elvis Presley’s “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You,” and he glanced up to see Erik grinning down at him—not the usual terrifying shark-grin but a softer, sweeter smile that Charles was pretty sure no one else ever saw.

They couldn’t say anything, of course, what with the earpieces. But the camera wouldn’t be able to capture their faces at this angle. They could dance, really dance, just for a moment…

The moment stretched into two or three or seven, Charles’s eyes closing, Erik’s forehead falling against his, their bodies curling tighter together with Erik’s leg between his—oh this was dangerous territory, they really ought to—

But their lips were touching, the kiss light and slow at first, growing deeper and warmer by the second oh Erik _Erik_ —

“Yo! Are you guys noticing this or what?” Alex snapped in their ears, and Charles snatched back from Erik with a gasp, looking around wildly.

Against the wall nearest them, only ten feet away, Shaw was back and getting more than a little impatient with Frost, who had turned away, refusing to talk to him. He grabbed her shoulder, forcing her around; she wrenched away and slapped him.

All across the ballroom, dancing couples faltered, making soft noises of horror or amusement. Shaw, looking around, made a show of backing off, hands raised and open; Frost stormed out of the room.

“Find a way to slip out the moment you can,” Moira said. “Go after her, try to get some information.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Charles murmured, and they began swaying toward the door.

*

They spent nearly three hours trying to track down Emma Frost, without success; the second time an employee caught them in an unauthorized area—the second one not as willing to buy that they’d stepped off for a snog—MacTaggert called a halt.

“Just go back to your room,” MacTaggert she sighed. “I think we’re done for the night.”

Erik made sure to keep his hands all over Charles all the way to their room; all part of the cover, of course. He was sorely tempted to push Charles up against the door for a little while before they unlocked it, but that would have been a little much for an undercover op. Even now they had to pretend.

“Well, that went splendidly,” Charles muttered once the door was locked behind them, their earpieces and microphones turned off and put away. “There’s no telling what we might have noticed about Shaw and Frost’s argument if we hadn’t been more busy with each other than with the case, exactly the scenario the anti-fraternization rules exist to prevent. I couldn’t even _blame_ them if they split us up now—”

“Don’t say that.” Erik stepped closer, right into Charles’s space. “They’re not splitting us up.”

As always, in complete opposition to what everyone else had ever done when Erik stood this close, Charles relaxed, melting against his body. “Magical thinking, Erik?”

“If you like.” Erik put his arms around him, this man who had dropped into his life like a thunderbolt, partner and friend and best beloved. “You’re the one always going on about positivity.”

“Well, right now I’m _positive_ that Moira’s going to put us on a spit first thing in the morning, and all we can do is take our well-deserved punishment.”

Erik grinned. “I can think of ways to… prepare ourselves for that.”

Charles looked up at him, the thin line of his mouth clearly torn between amusement and exasperation. “Really.”

“Really.” Erik slipped his hands up the inside of Charles’s shirt. “Are you ready to hear about what a bad boy you are, Charles?”

Charles snorted and shoved Erik away; he landed on his back on the bed, still grinning. “I think you have that backwards, my love. You,” he climbed onto the bed, his body over Erik’s, pinning his wrists, “are _at least_ as naughty as I am.”

Erik arched up just enough to whisper against Charles’s mouth, “Come a little closer and I’ll prove it.”

.

When the knock came at the door, all either of them was wearing was Charles’s left sock and a smile.

Charles frowned. “Does the retreat come with some sort of room service?”

He had barely gotten the words out when the door began to open, and they both reached for their guns.

“Wake up, boys, the night’s not over after all!” Captain MacTaggert hadn’t seen them yet, still pocketing her room key and glancing over her shoulder into the hallway. Erik just had time to yank the blankets up over his naked bottom half. Charles dove for the bathroom.

“Seriously, Lehnsherr?” MacTaggert said when she turned around. “I didn’t _actually_ think you’d gone to bed.”

Erik shrugged. “I’m tired.”

“Where’s Charles?”

“I was about to get in the shower,” Charles said, stepping out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist—and another thrown over his shoulders to hide the red mark Erik had put on his collarbone. “What’s up?”

MacTaggert rolled her eyes. “Oh, I don’t know, busting an international drug ring?”

“What?” Erik almost rose from the bed, remembered his bare parts, and irritably refrained.

“Raven caught up with Frost, and she spilled every bean she ever had. Several of the couples here aren’t couples at all—well, I guess they might be—but they’re not here to canoodle, they’re here to exchange bricks of white powder for bricks of green bills. The exchange is going down at midnight, and we’re going to fall on them like death from above. So get out of _bed_ and—” she flicked the blankets off Erik and recoiled with an actual shriek, clutching at her eyes.

“Oh my GOD, Lehnsherr!”

“I forgot to pack pajamas!” Erik shouted, yanking the blankets back.

“Did you forget to pack _underwear?”_

Charles, the idiot, was laughing so hard he could barely breathe, collapsed against the bathroom doorframe and slowly sliding down it. “I don’t think he owns any,” he gasped, which was… possibly true, actually.

“Put your clothes back on,” MacTaggert half-moaned between her fingers—she still had her face covered— “and report to my room in the other hotel within the hour.”

“Aye, captain,” they both said smartly, Erik huddled naked under the covers, Charles still laughing on the floor.

*

“Are you _sure_ you’re not gay?” Alex muttered to Charles as they gathered in Moira’s hotel room, strapping on weapons and body armor.

Charles just smiled. “Are any of us ever really sure, Alex? _Really_ sure?” He leaned closer. “For instance, some people might think, by the way you watch Hank from the crime lab when he brings Raven lunch—”

“OKAY, WHO’S READY TO GET THIS PARTY STARTED,” Alex said, moving swiftly away, and Charles and Erik exchanged grins.

It was the last time either of them would smile for a long, long time.

*

MacTaggert might have shouted something after Erik as he took off after Shaw, but Erik didn’t hear or care. His entire world had narrowed to the fact that Shaw was getting away.

It made him stupid; he knew that later, and it was worse than anything else, knowing he’d been stupid and that was why it happened. But Shaw had slipped the noose closing around all the other scum at the exchange point, and there was no version of reality in which Erik was okay with letting him go.

If there was a version in which Shaw didn’t get the drop on him and corner him at the hotel pool, well, it wasn’t this one.

“Little Erik,” Shaw said, smug and indulgent as he pointed a gun at Erik’s forehead. “Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you? You were unforgettable, my dear boy.”

“You’re a man of many trades, Sebastian—marriage counselor, foster parent, drug dealer, murderer… I’m afraid your storied career is about to come to an end, though.”

“Is it? All I have to do to prevent that, little Erik, is pull this trigger.”

Erik itched to reach for his own gun, but Shaw would be faster. He had to bide his time, keep the man talking until the rest of the team could catch up. “If you do that, all the time and effort you spent on me will be wasted.”

“True,” Shaw sighed. “That would be a shame. Not that you’ve been living up to any of your potential anyway—a cop, really? The ultimate straight and narrow. What would you say to a win-win situation? You show me what you’re really made of, and I don’t have to kill you.”

“I’m not nearly as _straight and narrow_ as you might think,” Erik said, showing all his teeth. “But if you’re suggesting I switch to _your_ side, Shaw, you’re delusional. You killed my mother.”

Shaw sighed. “I did, and it looks like I’ll kill you too. Pity.” His finger moved on the trigger—

—Erik found his own weapon in his hand faster than he would have believed he could draw it—

And the double concussion of two guns firing shook the air like thunder, just as Charles tackled Shaw into the pool.

*

When the rest of the team caught up, they found Shaw’s body floating in the pool, blood curling through the water like smoke.

Next to the pool, it was hard to tell how much of the puddle around Charles and Erik was blood and how much was water—but the puddle was growing.

MacTaggert reached for her radio. “Officer down at 62 Beach Boulevard,” she said, and if Erik didn’t know better, he’d think her voice was shaking.

“Stay back!” he snarled when Raven and Alex tried to rush to Charles’s side. They would both deny later that he drew his weapon on them—that would have gotten Erik whole new levels of reprimand and psych evaluation—but everyone knew that nothing else would have kept Raven away. “He needs to be _still_. Stay back.”

“Erik,” Charles said. His voice was raspy, weaker than it had been just a few moments before. He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes more than half open. “It’s all right, Erik… It’s all right, Erik.”

He reached up, trailing clumsy fingertips across Erik’s face. They left scarlet streaks on his skin. Erik caught the hand and pressed it to his mouth, faintly aware that he was crying.

Then there were medics, trying to take Charles away from him, and after a minute Raven’s begging became something other than background noise—he had to let go of Charles, had to let the medics help him.

“Stay with us, Charles, come on buddy,” said the medic—the newbie Charles had befriended, Sean, the freckled ginger kid hardly old enough to tie his own shoes. His voice was far too high-pitched right now for Erik’s comfort, as if he were on the verge of panicking. “That’s right, open your eyes. Do you have any allergies?”

“I can’t feel my legs,” Charles whispered, just before he lost consciousness.

*

“Moira tells me you tried to quit.” Charles’s voice was so soft, and the ambient noise of the hospital so relentless, that Erik had to lean in to hear—though he was already sitting as close to Charles’s bed as he could, with Charles’s hand clasped in both of his.

“There’s no ‘trying’ about it,” Erik said, his own voice nearly as quiet, and hoarse as if from screaming. “I turned in my resignation.”

“Which Moira tossed.” Charles stroked a thumb slowly up and down the edge of Erik’s hand. “Love, you can’t quit.”

“What can I do, then? Wait to be forced out after the investigation concludes?”

“You’re not even going to be reprimanded, Erik, much less kicked out, you’re not at fault—”

“It wasn’t Shaw’s bullet that ended up in your spine,” Erik snapped, and drew his hands away—only for Charles to drag them back, stronger than Erik would have thought possible.

“Erik, you can’t quit,” he insisted. “This job—this is who you are!”

“It’s who you are, too. But you’ve lost it. I took it from you, and I don’t deserve to keep it when you can’t.”

“First of all,” Charles drew a careful breath, as if even that effort was almost too much, “you’re ridiculous. Second of all, it’s 2015. There’s plenty that can be done now for spinal injuries.” He squeezed Erik’s hand, his gaze almost angry. “Don’t act like you’ve killed me, Erik. I’m still here.”

Erik could barely breathe past the knot in his throat, much less speak. “You won’t work in the field again, Charles.”

“Maybe.” The grimly determined optimism in Charles’s eyes faltered, briefly. “You’ll have to do it for both of us, then.”

“Without you?” Erik blinked hard, telling himself he had no right to cry in front of Charles. “We said we wouldn’t let them separate us—”

“I know,” Charles whispered. “I know.”

“I don’t want another partner, I don’t know how I could _stand_ another partner—”

Incredibly, some of the despair lifted from Charles’s expression. “Didn’t you hear? They’re giving you Raven.”

“Raven?” Erik repeated.

“You know she and Alex weren’t working out. You need a partner, she needs a partner…” He managed a half-smile. “You have to take care of her, Erik. She’s our baby, remember?”

“Your baby.”

“She loves you, too. Honestly, sometimes I felt you understood her better anyway.”

Erik didn’t want to admit it, but… it made a difference, knowing it would be Raven. He and Charles had trained Raven together; she wouldn’t feel like an intruder the way someone, anyone else would. “It won’t be the same,” he said, lacing their fingers together.

“No. Nothing will be the same now. But not… not _all_ in terrible ways.” He pressed a kiss to Erik’s hand. “We don’t have to hide anymore.”

“Yeah,” said a voice from the doorway, and Erik turned, a snarl already on his lips, to see Alex Summers standing there, awkwardly holding a gigantic flower arrangement. “I mean—everyone knows, now, that you're… together. It wasn’t hard to figure out after watching… uh…”

“Watching what?” Erik said dangerously.

“You were cradling him on your lap, dude!” Alex said, apparently giving up on discretion. “Crying. I wasn’t even _surprised_ when you kissed his hand.”

“So much effort wasted,” Charles said, but he sounded amused.

Erik shook his head. It was a small enough comfort, and yet… it did matter. It would matter, more and more, going forward. “No more hiding, then,” he said. “We have that, at least.”

“And more than that,” Charles said, and pulled him down into a kiss, right in front of Alex Summers and the entire rest of the world.

_No more hiding_ , Erik thought again, and kissed him back as hard as he could.


	2. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone [on tumblr](http://turtletotem.tumblr.com/post/130249755826/im-in-love-with-that-oneshot-where-theyre-dating) asked for more information on how things turned out in this 'verse.

Well, Erik and Raven’s partnership is a smashing success and they’re together for several years. Eventually, though, Raven takes a career opportunity with another PD. Rather than break in another partner, Erik transfers to the Fraud section, where they’re not assigned partners because most of what they do is paperwork analyses rather than fieldwork. Part of him is sad to lose fieldwork, but he’s in his late forties by this time and being settled and safe has more appeal than it used to. Plus, the paperwork is wicked hard and he actually enjoys the challenge.

Another factor is that by this time, he and Charles have a family – two adopted kids and two fosters. Not getting shot at anymore becomes important in those circumstances.

Charles gradually regains enough mobility that he can walk with a cane for short periods. Medicine really has made great strides since the 60s. He ends up teaching at the police academy, which is a disappointment compared to fieldwork at first, but later he admits that teaching is his true calling. He and Erik are married a year after his injury. For their honeymoon they attend Emma Frost’s same-sex couples retreat in the Smokey Mountains, which they enjoy immensely. (Emma was cleared of any wrongdoing in the drug case; in fact she and Shaw were fighting because she’d discovered what he was up to.)

Also, Raven and Hank have an amicable breakup after dating for almost a year. She meets Irene Adler when she moves to the other PD; Irene’s a psychic consultant for the department.

Hank marries Alex. :)


End file.
